Yili Wen (文怡力)

I'm interested in designing and building wearable and hardware systems that restore and augment human movement. I am drawn to the full loop from human intent to physical assistance, and I work across actuation and control, embedded sensing, and digital fabrication. My approach is hands-on and human-centered. I prototype real hardware and evaluate it with the people it is built for. Looking ahead, I want to extend my research toward assistive and rehabilitation robotics and exoskeletons, and toward closing the loop between neural intent and adaptive physical assistance.

Current Projects: Right now I am building two systems. The first is a soft pneumatic grasp-assist exoskeleton that helps people with spinal cord injury regain hand function for everyday tasks, driven by the wearer's own decoded intent. The second is a wearable actuation system for blind and low-vision runners that gives directional turn and hazard guidance on the body, so they can run independently instead of relying on a sighted guide, where I study whether actuating the body in a head-to-pelvis sequence communicates a turn more clearly than actuating all at once.

I am currently advised by Prof. Liang He at the DE4M Lab, UTD.